Talk:Same-Sex Marriage/@comment-5298819-20121013220027/@comment-4357864-20121229232106
I'm really not giving you an opinion here. I'm just telling you. There is no room for different interpretations here. I study the Constitution every day for my 7th period class, and I even got a perfect score on the Establishment Clause test. I don't want to sound like little brat but I consistently have the highest scores in my con-law class. While I'm certainly no expert, I do feel confident that I have mastered the Establishment Clause. You are correct in saying that the Constitution doesn't address gay marriage, which is why it's not unconstitutional to allow gay marriage BUT it also means that it isn't against the 1st amendment to ban gay marriage. Some Constitutional scholars argue that banning gay marriage does violate the 14th Amendment, and I haven't studied that yet so I'm not going to debate you on that (kinda like you haven't studied the 1st amendment to the extent I have) You say that my murder point is moot because banning murder isn't solely religious motivated. Well… that's the whole point! I brought up the murder comparison because there are other reasons to ban it than what the Bible says… just like gay marriage! I know many people are against gay marriage because of their religion, but even if 99.99% of people are (which they aren't), it's still not a religious issue. I don't care if you feel strongly that people against gays must have religious motives, because it doesn't matter if they do have religious motives. Let's go over the Establishment Clause again: "Congress shall pass no law regarding the establishment of a religion." I will leave you with one final question. It is a question you cannot answer. If gay marriage is banned, which religion would we be establishing as our national religion? By banning gay marriage, are we establishing Catholicism? Orthodox Judaism? Islam? Hinduism? You cannot answer because no religion is being established. If the word "established" is what you are hung up on, take Great Britain for example. They have an established state religion, The Church of England. The polar opposite is a county like France, which has a completely atheist government. French politicians don't say "God bless France" and there are no national prayer days. Now, you may think that America should be like that, but the truth is we aren't. The Founding Fathers took the middle route when drafting the Constitution. They said we wouldn't create a state religion (like Catholicism or Islam) but they didn't say that there can be no religion in government. Therefore, just having a lawmaker vote with a religious motivation isn't enough to violate the constitution unless they are passing a law regarding religion and only religion that: A) Puts one religion over another. (like putting up a Christmas tree but not a Menorah) B) Puts religion over non-religion (like putting up a Christmas tree but not secular symbols). C) That doesn't have at least one secular purpose (like putting up a Christmas tree for the sole reason of declaring Christianity the one true religion) As you can see, and as every Constitutional scholar in America can see, these three prongs of what is known as the "Lemon Test" would not be violated. Don't take my word for it, take the word of the pro-gay marriage Constitutional lawyers. There are two gay marriage cases the Supreme Court will hear. Neither have anything to do with the 1st amendment.